From Emerging Talent to Future-Facing Leadership

Context: Retention dipped where it mattered most

Since 2024, a major healthcare organization has worked with WDHB on a flagship emerging  talent program designed to build its next generation of leaders.  Targeting recent university graduates, this multi-year rotational program moves a cohort of  emerging leaders through multiple parts of the organization before participants secure post-program roles. The program was established with executive support from inception  and has maintained a high level of senior leader support.

When the program’s leader stepped into the role, early signals pointed to opportunities to strengthen the program:

• Retention that dipped most where it mattered — close to program completion, just as years of investment were about to pay off
• There was an opportunity to add a formal celebratory event marking the culmination of what participants had learned, experienced, and developed during the program 

The program leader approached WDHB with two key ambitions. The first was to give participants a window into how leadership, innovation, and culture transformation work in leading organizations beyond their own. The program recruits directly from universities, and many participants have only experienced one way of working. The second was to mark the end of their program journey in a way that reflects the spirit of the company’s culture. 

“We were trying to solve this problem of: how do we give them exposure to how other people think and how other people operate that isn’t just ‘our way’ — which is probably all they know.”

– Program Leader

The solution we designed: A capstone built on Threaded Learning®

Grounded in our Threaded Learning^® methodology (WDHB’s experiential learning design), we designed a Learning Expedition that serves as the capstone experience of the talent program. 

A learning journey design that holds, while its contents change. Three key themes anchor the design across cohorts: culture, innovation, and growing with digitalization. What sits inside those themes is rebuilt each cycle, in partnership with the program team,  based on the current realities of the business environment. For instance, when the company entered a period of transformation, resilience and navigating disruption became a key focus. 

Exposure chosen for otherness, relevance, and authenticity. Participants spend time with organizations outside their own industry: global technology companies, a leading design firm, startups, and non-profit organizations. Participants consistently name the contrast itself as something that moved them. WDHB carefully curates sessions with speakers who share their own authentic experiences — the first principle at the core of Threaded Learning.

A question many talent leaders consider, and one our client explored early on, is how exposure to other organizations affects high-potential emerging talent. What we’ve seen across our work is that exposure signals investment, and limiting it can signal the opposite. The program leader now shares this perspective when colleagues in other departments ask about Learning Expeditions.

“If a single visit to another company were the deciding factor for someone’s decision to stay, that would point to something deeper worth looking at. I see exposure as a strength for retention: it broadens perspective and shows people we’re invested in them.”

– Program Leader

Threaded Learning’s second principle — Otherness, or intentionally including differing perspectives — gives the participants a new lens for which to see their challenges. Company visits increase participants’ sense of belonging, and after every Learning Expedition, participants bring back new ways of thinking, problem-solving, and leadership capability-building. 

Structured reflection between every exposure. In leveraging Reflection — another principle in Threaded Learning’s core — we design multiple facilitated debriefing sessions to convert what participants see into something they can name and use. This is among the most consistently praised parts of the design. Participants continually describe the WDHB facilitation as simple but effective and routinely ask to take the reflection materials back to work with them.

A graduation ceremony worthy of the journey. WDHB designed a celebration that sends each cohort off with a bang, from a master of ceremony, to a collection of the group’s memories over the years, special mementos, and curated experiences. No detail forgotten.

A bridge back to the workplace. WDHB co-designed a reflection guide for participants’ direct managers, shared in advance of each cohort’s return. The guide prepares managers for a follow-up conversation with participants as each class graduates. This extends the Conversation principle in Threaded Learning well beyond the Learning Expedition and supports the transfer of knowledge, skills, and mindsets across the organization. 

The result: Rated among the most valuable experiences of their careers so far

The insight is specific enough to be actionable. On average, participants rate their likelihood of adopting new ways of thinking at 9.2/10 and of driving new initiatives or changing existing plans at 9.0/10. The client has observed stronger participant engagement and team cohesion, along with a greater openness among participants to show up authentically throughout the program. After graduation, each cohort brings back the leadership identity development they learned from the program back to the workplace. One graduate noted that the Learning Expedition taught them how to “actually influence, lead, and embrace change across the company.”

The cohort leaves as a network. After graduation, each class disperses across the organization, many landing in differing business units. Participants consistently describe the shared experience — the sessions, the meals, the transfers, the city — as the thing that turns a set of colleagues into people they will continue to trust throughout their careers. Alumni often return to speak with the following cohort about what they still use in their work years later. 

Other parts of the organization have started asking for it. The experience began with one specific program and has  since expanded to a second emerging talent leadership development program, with other programs in the portfolio expressing interest. 

Alumni retention now sits at around 90%. Since the partnership began, alongside broader changes the client made to the program, retention of program graduates has risen to roughly 90%. This is a strong results given where retention started and today’s evolving world of work.  The client routinely sees the Learning Expedition as one of the biggest drivers: participants now have something to look forward to that culminates their journey and gives them a final piece of learning in the program before graduation. 

A strong, embedded culture partnership. Over the years, the person responsible for the program has changed. Each outgoing program leaderhas brought their successor onto a live expedition before handing over, so the institutional memory transfers through shared experience. The client describes the relationship as distinct from typical vendor arrangements: every experience is tailored rather than off-the-shelf, and feedback flows in both directions — required of a trusted transformation partner. 

“You could tell it’s not a cookie-cutter experience… It wasn’t ‘here are offerings, pick and choose.’ It was very personal, very tailored. And I felt that from the moment we started working with WDHB.”

Talent Development Leader